Rangers At the World Championships: May 9th

In the aftermath of the Ethan Werek trade and with the NHL playoffs still going on, there is still some newsworthy game action concerning some Rangers players at the World Championships in Slovakia.

Despite a disappointing tournament as host nation Slovakia beat Denmark 4-1 in the early Monday game, their last game of the tournament. Too good for the relegation rounds and not good enough to get to the quarter finals, it was indeed a tournament to forget for a Slovakia team with many NHL stars, including Marian Gaborik. Indeed, Gaborik’s tournament was much like his season for the Rangers. Some success, but not what was perhaps expected. Gaborik collected a primary power play assist on a Marian Hossa goal today, took 5 shots and played a shade under 15 minutes.For the tournament overall, Gaborik had 2 goals and an assist in 6 games (underwhelming?), took 32 shots overall and averaged over 18 minutes per game. He finished -2 for the tournament. One can only hope Gaborik has a good off season and comes back fresh and ready to bounce back from a poor year personally.

The Rangers were also well represented by team USA today, who played against Switzerland in their last ‘qualification’ game before the quarter finals. Derek Stepan (having a great tournament), Ryan McDonagh and Chris Kreider have all played their part in this tournament for the young American team. Unfortunately, the US was upset 5-3 by a hungrier Swiss team who were playing only for pride. Derek Stepan got a secondary assist on the last US goal to continue his highly productive tournament. Stepan grabbed his 7th point in his 6th game with his assist. Ryan McDonagh and Chris Kreider were held off the scoreboard in the game as Kreider remains with 3 points in 6 games thus far and McDonagh has a single assist in the tournament. The US team will play the Czech Republic next, either on Wednesday or Thursday. The Czechs have been arguably the best team in the tournament thus far so it’s not an easy game for the US.

121…. you cant always be in perpetual rebuild/draft mode. This team has drafted well for a few yrs now and the current roster is evidence of this. Getting rid of the few skill, matured players to draft more kids is not right whatsoever. This team needs to add (sensibly) to the core and then become a contender. You can’t just draft kids forever.

As far as draft mode, I don’t see why we can’t add an elite young talent that should be NHL ready in less than 2 yrs. If you can add the likes of a Jeff Skinner for example, to play next year, wouldn’t you do it?

As for Gaborik, he is skilled, but, he has never won, he will never win, and his best years are behind him.

I’m going to go with Dave on this one. You build a team to win a championship for only a certain number of years. Only way you can win a cup. That’s why it’s hard to repeat. You trade away future to get talent. We have a window now to win within the next 5 years about so let’s stop pussyfooting around and just win a cup already. You think I cared in 94′ that we wouldn’t win a cup for another 17 years at least? I woulda traded another 54 years for that one cup.